The present invention relates to software, and in particular, to secure software service systems and methods.
Software security is an increasingly important area of technology. As more information is processed electronically, software system developers are increasingly concerned with a variety of security issues such as authorization and processes for determining authorized use, for example. Security concerns are especially important in enterprise systems and service oriented systems such as software-as-a-service (“SaaS”).
For example, software is increasingly being delivered on the service oriented architecture (“SOA”) model. SOA represents a model in which functionality is decomposed into services, which can be distributed over a network and can be combined together and reused to create (composite) applications. Current license-based pricing (perpetual licensing) for software is mainly based on per processor or per registered user. Changes in technology (e.g. SOA) and in usage (e.g. Internet-based vs. intranet-based) are causing software vendors to look at other models for charging for their software. In particular, software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) customers are putting increased pressure on application vendors to come up with more flexible pricing models that meet their business needs. Over recent years there has been an increased level of interest in utility pricing for software. The focus of this topic is to create new operating cost models where the unit costs are directly tied to the business operations to which they contribute. Simply put, customers would pay for what they use. For instance, a business software vendor would set his utility price on a per-enterprise service or business process basis, or a search engine vendor might base his pricing on a per-search basis. While creating a fine-granular operating cost model is very important, the real world implementations of technology platforms offering such models will require a set of security mechanisms in order to create a secure and trustworthy service consumption environment.
Thus, there is a need to improve security in software. As a specific example, there is a need to provide security mechanisms in software which offers business functionality as individual or composed software services. The present invention solves these and other problems by providing secure software service systems and methods.